The Illusory Prophet

by Susan Kaye Quinn

  The med tech who’s monitoring Cyrus flicks a look at me but says nothing.

  Basha lets out a small whimper, and that cuts through me—she’s always been hyper aware of everything, every small social cue, and I don’t want to know what that glance from the med tech means. I don’t want to know what he sees on his tablet.

  Cyrus can’t die.

  The med tech working on Cyrus’s wound leans back and drops his hands. He exchanges a look with the one with the tablet.

  No, no, no…

  Cyrus’s eyes drift closed. “So tired…” he whispers.

  I squeeze harder on his shoulder. “Cyrus.”

  He winces and turns his head to me. His eyes are still closed, but now they’re squeezed shut. “Come on, man…” he says like I’m bothering him. Like I’m waking him from a stolen nap in the barracks when he’s been out on duty for too long.

  The two med techs step back. They’re not working on him any longer. I want to shout at them to do something, but a motion at the far side of the room sends up a murmur and grabs their attention.

  It’s Miriam. The crowd parts before her. She catches my eye but quickly turns to check on the jiv laid out on the first stretcher. The med tech shakes his head. She moves onto the second, the one I already know is dead. She briefly places a hand on the man’s body then moves on. The hushed anticipation of the room is turning into cries of grief and open sobbing—as if they were waiting for her to officially declare them dead.

  I shove my way around the end of Cyrus’s stretcher and push through the crowd toward Miriam. She’s already moved on to the third stretcher—the med tech gives her a nod. She smiles at the jiv who’s missing a leg. He grins up at her. This is his chance to get a new augment—which is completely messed up, but I couldn’t care less. Miriam turns to the fourth stretcher. That jiv is missing an arm and a leg, but that’s not what’s doing her in. It’s the hole in her gut from a light weapon that took out a chunk of her side. Just like Cyrus. Her face is ashen, like his. A young man stands by her side, petting her hair. He’s already crying. The med tech shakes his head in answer to Miriam’s unspoken question.

  I reach the end of the stretcher as Miriam squeezes the shoulder of the crying man. He doesn’t seem to notice. Miriam backs away, running straight into me—because I’m not moving.

  “I need a transport,” I demand, keeping my voice low. “The ascenders have tech that can save Cyrus.”

  She scowls. “No.” Her voice is harsh. “We need that ship.” She pushes past me, heading for Cyrus’s stretcher.

  I follow her, anger a live volcano inside me. My best friend is dying, and the ascenders can save him. You can save him too, my head tells me—but I can’t. He wasn’t shocked out of his body, like Kamali—his insides are torn to shreds. I can’t imagine it away. This isn’t a drawing on a pad or lights only Kamali can see. This is a giant hole in my best friend’s gut. But I know for sure that ascender tech can fix it.

  “I’ll bring the transport back,” I say, desperate as I trail close behind Miriam. The crowd moves for her, and we’re already reaching Cyrus’s spot. “I’ll bring even more tech, whatever you want, just name it.”

  She stops and gives me a deadly glare. “I’m not a fool, Eli. You’re not bringing that ship back.” Then she turns to Cyrus, glances over him, and looks to the med techs. They’ve taken a step back. The one who was monitoring him just shakes his head.

  “No.” I lurch back to Cyrus’s side.

  His face is slack now. Basha is openly sobbing. All the air has gone out of the room.

  Cyrus’s wound is no longer gushing blood. His chest is still. While I was off screeching at Miriam, demanding a ship to run to the ascenders to save my best friend, he was quietly dying.

  I feel the heat of Miriam and med techs staring. Every gaze in the room is on me. Tristan in his chair. Nathaniel at the foot of the stretcher. Even Kamali seems to hold her breath.

  They expect me to save him.

  My chest caves in. My hand shakes as I reach for his. I hold it hard. It’s still warm. Tears blur my vision. I should have found a way to stop him. This stupid idea—that stealing tech from the ascenders was the only salvation for mankind—it was foolishness of the highest order. The Makers are like babies, unarmed against tyrants. Children against tanks. This was Cyrus’s one chance to battle the ascenders for real, and they sliced him into pieces, stealing his life and everything that he is.

  It’s not right. This shouldn’t happen.

  I can bring him back.

  The words are burning in my brain.

  Kamali was shocked out of her life. Augustus’s electrical weapon stopped her heart and shorted out her brain, but that was just a jolt that flung her into the afterlife. I merely fetched her back. But Cyrus… parts of his body are bloody meat.

  If I bring him back, will he simply die all over again?

  I don’t know how any of this works.

  One thing is certain: if I bring Cyrus back, even for a moment, here in a Makers’ med pod with dozens of onlookers… everyone will know. They’ll see with their own eyes. They’ll know with rock-hard certainty this ability isn’t a fluke or rumor or the wishful thinking of someone trying to be a prophet.

  They’ll know it’s real. Whatever that means. I’m not even sure I know.

  But the choice is clear.

  I can let my best friend die.

  Or I can show the Makers the infinitely dangerous weapon I am.

  As much as I don’t want to hand them an advantage in their misbegotten war of genocide against ascenders… I can’t let Cyrus die. Not without at least trying to save him.

  I keep my grip on Cyrus’s hand and lean over his body, placing my other hand on his wound. I shift, but his vibrant fugue-state form doesn’t snap into view. All I see is Cyrus’s lifeless body. He’s already gone. But I know my best friend—I can find him, wherever he’s gone. It takes no effort at all to solidify Cyrus in my mind.

  My body slumps over the broken flesh of my best friend as I fling out with such power and suddenness that I’m not sure where I’m going until I come to a jarring stop.

  I’m standing in Cyrus’s apartment.

  He’s in front of me with his back turned. The hood is up on his brown, woolen jacket, but I know it’s him. He’s staring down the hallway toward the bedroom where his grandfather lived. It’s so real, I have to look around to verify I’m actually in the fugue. It’s the same tattered wallpaper I remember from our Orion-provided legacy housing. The same broken furniture. The same scraps of gray market goods on the shelves. Dishes sit on the chipped-surface counter, left over from a meal recently eaten. But there’s also a gray mist eating at the walls, trying to pull them apart.

  “Cyrus,” I call, my voice feeling small in this place.

  He turns, a frown on his face. “Eli.” He’s not surprised to see me. It’s as if he doesn’t know where we are—where we truly are—and he thinks it’s natural for me to be standing in his living room. A room we haven’t been in for months. He looks back down the hallway. “My grandfather’s here. My mom and dad, too.”

  They’re all dead. His parents were killed when Cyrus was only ten. But I have no doubt they are actually down that hall, wherever it leads.

  “I know,” I choke out. “But I need you, Cy.”

  He turns sharply back to me. “You’ve always needed me. I’ve always been there for you. Always looked out for you.”

  He’s right. I shouldn’t ask this of him. I shouldn’t want him to save me one more time, if only just by being there for me. Like the countless other times.

  “I know.” The words are getting harder, like molasses burying me.

  His eyes narrow. He flicks a look back down the hall, and I see realization steal over him. “You’re here to save me.” Then something like fear shows in his eyes, and he shakes his head. “No. No, this is wrong. You can’t be that guy, Eli. You can’t. I beat the shit out of Tyler McPherson for you in fifth year.”
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  I smile through the heaviness. “I remember.”

  “You’re not supposed to be the one saving me. That’s my job.”

  “I guess it’s my turn.”

  That gives him a panicked look. He shakes his head harder. “You’re my scrawny little brother. You are not the coming one.” But his eyes are getting wider. Like he doesn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth.

  “No, probably not.” I honestly don’t know what I am. All I know is I need to do this.

  He points a finger at me. “I know you. You’re going to screw this up.”

  “Probably.” And he’s right, as usual. I don’t even know if I can bring him back. This might all be for nothing. “But I have to try. I need you, Cyrus.”

  His eyes are full of fear that borders on panic now, but he nods, slowly. “You need my help. Now. With this.”

  “I can’t do it without you.” It’s the truth.

  He looks back down the hallway, staring for a long time. I know exactly what this is costing him. The ascenders took his parents, his grandfather, the only family he had—they stole all of it. And now I’m asking him to give them up one more time, just because I can’t do this alone. The prophet everyone’s waiting for should be stronger than this. But I’m not.

  Slowly, Cyrus turns to me. Then he holds out his hand, palm up. He just stands there, his offer extended. My only consolation is that he won’t remember any of it.

  I apologize anyway. “I’m sorry,” I say as I take his hand. The entirety of Cyrus’s life crashes down on me, flowing through me like a hot wind that blows us both out of the gauzy comfort of this childhood home. In the vast rushing, I see a million things at once. Cyrus’s great love is like a giant shield wrapped around me, deflecting everything that is wrong and bad in the world. His faith in me has never been that I’m a savior, or a great person, or anything more than simply his brother. But I see clearly that he’s never loved anyone as much. It was always there, no matter how much I doubted it, and now it fills me with a strength that feels borrowed—as if the physical strength of his body is somehow flooding into my essence. With Cyrus, it was always this at the heart of everything. A vast love. Boundless. Even his hatred of ascenders pales compared to this infinitely strong, infinitely powerful, capacity held inside him.

  The rush slams us back into reality.

  Basha shrieks and Kamali gasps, but most importantly, I hear the air sucking back into Cyrus’s lungs. I lift up off his body—my hand and face are slick with his blood, but that’s not what’s making my chest clench. I’ve yanked his fugue-state form back into his body, but can I actually heal him? I shift slightly into the fugue again, the connection rushing me with this insanely huge capacity my best friend has to love. I channel all of that back down to the torn flesh under my hand. In the fugue state, his body appears whole and healthy. I feel his physical body under my hand writhing and reforming to match it. I’m painting with the reality of Cyrus’s flesh—I can’t tell if this is only happening in the fugue or if it’s bleeding over into reality the way I hope.

  When it seems complete, I lift my hand from his body, breaking our contact and dropping out of the fugue. Cyrus’s clothes are still smeared with his blood… but the stitched-up wound in his gut is gone. As if it were never there. I finally suck air back into my lungs, breathing in all the humanity of the med pod—the iron-rich smell of blood, the tang of antiseptics, the acrid twist of fear in the air.

  Cyrus jerks up to sitting. Basha lets out a sound that’s halfway between a gasp and cry. His eyes are wide, and his hand clutches his side, but not in pain… in surprise. Then he slowly drags his gaze up to meet mine. “What…” But he stops there.

  I smile wide. “You okay?”

  He just shakes his head, amazement paralyzing his face.

  Basha throws her arms around Cyrus, and he hugs her back. Kamali’s eyes are shining bright. The smile on her face floods me with equal parts joy and fear—this will forever define us, just as much as when I brought her back.

  The sound of Basha’s joy presides over a pall of silence.

  Then the room comes alive with shouting—I feel the heat of their anger even as the words themselves are lost in a muffled roar. Tristan leaps out of his chair to stand in front of me, blocking the angry stares of the Makers. Nathaniel joins him, fists formed and ready to fight. A mob has suddenly formed, and the sounds coalesce into words: what about the others?

  Of course.

  They want me to save their friends, too.

  Cyrus scrambles off his gurney to stand in front of me. I stare, shocked by the simple fact that he can. It brings out even more shouted demands. Basha hurries to his side, her small hands out like she’s going to single-handedly fight off the mob. The stretcher squeaks behind me—Kamali is climbing over. She pushes me back against maglev then stands between the crowd and me. But none of it will be enough if they come for me.

  Miriam is still standing near the end of Cyrus’s stretcher, coolly taking in my protective detail and letting the angry words of her people wash over us.

  Threaten us.

  “I don’t know what game you’re playing, Elijah Brighton,” she calls out above the noise, “but you are not welcome to play it here.” Yet she’s not holding them back—like she’s happy to let her amped-up jivs tear me apart for daring to pretend to save Cyrus. For mocking them and their sacrifices while their fellow jivs lay dying.

  The shouts ramp up, and several of the jivs lurch toward us. The menace on their faces is clear. Cyrus is growling words, Nathaniel’s bristling for a fight, and Tristan’s dropped into a fighting pose—even Basha has her fingers ready to claw anyone within reach.

  Kamali turns to hold my face in her two hands. “You have to try it.” Her eyes are still shining like before.

  I knew this was the price, but I don’t want to pay it. “I don’t want to be this,” I whisper. I needed Kamali and Cyrus—I don’t need this. I don’t want this. And I have no idea if it’s even possible. These are complete strangers.

  Her hands are soft on my face. “I know. It’s not fair. But you have to try.”

  Trying will be nowhere near enough. I have to succeed. She has to know it’s true—I’ve put all of us in danger by saving Cyrus.

  Kamali stares into my eyes with that fierce determination. “No matter what happens, I’ll always love you.”

  A heart-expanding feeling rushes through me, and it feels just like with Cyrus. I’m not in the fugue, yet I know with absolute certainty that Kamali loves me, Eli, the boy who struggles. The boy who doesn’t want to be a prophet of any kind. The boy who foolishly saves his friends, even when he knows it will change everything.

  I pull back. The crowd is ramping up, but Kamali’s eyes hold the entire world just for me… and that’s all I need. “Hold me,” I say to her. Then I yank myself out of my own body, leaving it behind to sag into her dancer-strong arms.

  My fugue form is quickly drawn to the jiv in the first stretcher by the door. The hole in her chest is gaping and dark, and her fugue-state form is dimming towards death. I plunge my hand into her body. Her life swamps me, flooding me with everything that brought her to this point, dying on the gurney. I picture her whole, and reality shifts to align with her fugue-state form, healing her body and strengthening the tenuous hold she has on this world. By the time I pull back, her heart is racing back to normal speed, her breath ramping up, and her eyes blinking open.

  The second stretcher holds a jiv who was gone before we even reach the med pod. How long can someone be dead before I can no longer bring them back? I have no idea. But I sink both hands into his body. Only this time, I’m trying to heal a corpse, and I’ve got no fugue-state form to guide me. A woman stands next to the body, her face haggard. Her attention has been drawn to where my body still sags in Kamali’s arms. I touch the woman’s fugue-state form—she’s a fellow jiv, training every day for two years, side by side, with the dead man. They weren’t seconds, but they were best of
friends—and that’s enough for me to find him in the fugue.

  I’m whisked away from the med pod, sailing through gray mist until I’m standing outside a house filled with laughter. This man—Jeremy—is inside, already crossed over. I summon him out of the house, and he stands dazedly before me. I have the same sense of drenching guilt I did with Cyrus, but this man has a purpose yet to serve… for the Makers and for me.

  I place my hand on his shoulder and pull him back to the med pod. I perform the same painting with reality I’ve done before, twice now, then step back from his now-healed body. Jeremy surges up to sitting on his gurney. His friend shrieks, and the whole room shifts focus to her. And him.

  Silence falls like an exhaled breath.

  But I’m not done yet.

  I skip the jiv who only needs an augment for his missing leg and flit to the side of the gravely wounded one. The final one. The med techs pronounced her impossible to save, and they were right. She’s dead now—missing an arm and a leg, but it’s the hole in her gut that killed her. I’ll leave her limbs to be replaced by augments by the Makers. I lay my hand only on the wound that drove her soul from this world. A man quietly sobs next to her, ignoring everything else—both chaos and shock. I touch him, and his grief consumes me, but I have to know him so I can know her. I find her floating in a gray room, dazed and unaware of what’s happened. I don’t have time to dwell on why one person lands in a happy home while another finds themselves trapped in a box of vague confusion… I’m just a reverse Grim Reaper, bringing them back, one by one, to a world that’s not ready for them to leave.

  I close my eyes and will us both back to the version of reality where I’ll have to face the consequences of what I’ve done.

  When I open my eyes again, she’s gasping to life, just like the others. The hole in her side is healed as if it never existed. A look of disbelief on the man’s face is mixed with such extreme joy, I can’t help but feel it wash over me, lifting me on their rising tide of happiness, even though I’m no longer touching them in the fugue.